


Vulnera Sanentur

by Hayalee8



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Canon Rewrite, During Canon, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Lily Evans Potter & Severus Snape Friendship, Other, Parent-Child Relationship, Young Severus Snape
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-20
Updated: 2021-01-20
Packaged: 2021-03-11 23:02:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,959
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28875390
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hayalee8/pseuds/Hayalee8
Summary: "Vulnera Sanentur. Such tremendous power in only two words, reversing unforgivable, unfathomable harm, healing what would've never been expected to heal. A song of life, the melody of which he had inherited from his mother to be able to put a stopper in pain and destruction and death."Severus Snape and his signature healing counter-course over the course of his life.
Relationships: Eileen Prince & Severus Snape
Kudos: 11





	Vulnera Sanentur

"Watcha sayin', mummy?" 

His voice sounded feeble, dropping with exhaustion. Just a short while ago, his shrieks of pain and terror had been filling the room; now, however, a soothing dizziness took over, his mother's quiet singing voice lulling him into sleep. 

"Be silent, darling, it's almost over. Just a wee bit and I'll be done. Don't move yet." 

Gentle fingers continued tracing along his naked back, and he obediently held still, and yet wanted an answer to his question. 

"But watcha sayin'?.." 

His mother sang a few last tunes, voice trailing off, the words turning almost into a whisper. Her movements stopped and she rose from his bed which she had been sitting upon for the last minutes. 

"Something good, something very good, Sevvie. It's a song which makes your back feel alright again. It's not hurting anymore, is it?"

"Nah, it isn't, mummy."

"I'm happy, darling. Now let's make sure you're going to sleep well, shall we?"

He wanted to protest, as he always did, he never wanted to sleep, he hated being left alone and the nightmares only increased the fear; but his lids did not obey him anymore. 

"I see you won't need a calming draught this time", he heard his mother chuckle quietly, "good night then." 

He felt being tucked in and a light kiss on his forehead, yet was too tired to even smile back as he usually did, as his mind traveled off into the land of dreams.

***

"Please, please come! She's going to die, you have to heal her! 

"I can't." 

"Please, she will die!! You know how to do it, you always know!" 

"I said I can't, Severus."

"But why!? Just come and sing that song, you've just been doing it on my arm when father hit me yesterday, why can't you now?!"

"Just let it go." 

"No!! I won't! If you don't want to, I'll do it myself! Tell me the spell!" 

"It won't work." 

"Because I don't know how to, but you do, mum! Help me save her!!" 

"Be quiet, Severus." 

"I won't! That's evil! She doesn't deserve to die!"

"I said be quiet!"

"You are just as evil as him!" 

"Shut up, will you!? Is it my fault that your retarded father had to kill this sodding cat?! The spell doesn't work on animals! Besides, he cut her throat; she must have bled to death already." 

"I don't believe you!!" 

"Leave me alone, now!!"

***

Severus riffled through the drawers in desperate urgency. Nothing. The bookshelf didn't have anything to offer either. The floor was littered with papers and pencils and books and whatever else he had thrown around in his frantic search. He hadn't still mastered the spell well enough to be able to follow the exact sequence of melody and words, but his notes could help him out, they most definitely would, he had no doubt in his abilities, he just needed to find those notes. The ones he had scribbled down after having listened carefully to his mother performing it on his body, following yet another broken bottle having been thrown in his direction, slicing up his skin. He didn't want to ask his mother as she would inquire in turn what he would need it for, or even worse, for whom...   
Severus had no intention whatsoever to elaborate on who he had been sharing his magic with the past weeks. Never were they to know who he was meeting with during those lazy afternoons filled with absolutely nothing but him sitting behind the bushes, staring at the road behind them and waiting for the tiny figure with the long, wavy red hair to approach the playground and whistle three times. Then he could leave his hiding place and allow himself to smile and be him, actually enjoying his existence, for the next few hours, until the darkness fell and they both had to leave, each one to what they were able to call home.

Severus threw himself on the bed. The notebook was nowhere to be found. And yet he had promised it to her. That he would help her get rid of the ugly red scar on her leg, the result of the recent tryouts of their magical abilities. How he hated himself for that stupid idea of his. What was he thinking, attempting to cut that bloody orange with her sitting right next to it? To be honest, neither of them had deemed it possible to actually make something happen just by staring at it and doing imaginary cutting movements with the fruit knife. When she had tried it, nothing at all happened, whereas him...   
Of course it was Lily who had kept her nerves and swallowed the pain and the tears and promised she wouldn't tell anyone how the knife ended up slashing her leg instead of the orange. And that she didn't believe he did it on purpose, like when the branch had fallen on Petunia back then, before she got to know who he really was. Severus, devastated as he was about his lack of damage control, and astonished by her bravery, gave his most sincere and heartfelt promise to find a way to make it disappear. So Lily could attend her first day at Hogwarts without this disgraceful injury, the screaming proof of him having failed her in both his abilities and their rightful application. 

Their first day was due tomorrow. Lily was waiting at the playground for him to arrive and fulfill his promise before the sun would set and she had to go home and prepare for her big day. And here he was, in his bloody room, all his efforts in vain, the notebook gone and so the healing spell. 

Severus sighed deeply. Never before had he dared taking anything of his mother's, neither ingredients which she kept in a box in the storage room, nor vials or lotions she used to store in an empty cupboard in the attic. But drastic times called for drastic measures. He had to make up for the spell somehow, and if he remembered correctly, dittany was another way of healing scars. Luckily for him, his mother was at work. Severus quickly climbed the ladder to the attic. He had no time to lose. Thankfully enough his mother knew how to keep things in order. Every vial and bottle were meticulously labeled. He grabbed the bottle with "Dittany" written on it and stormed down the ladder and out of the house.   
He would take care of the chaos in his room later and if his father arrived before him to see it and punish him for this, so be it. Perhaps he'd get another chance then to listen to his mother singing the spell and would write it into another notebook.   
Right now, Lily was what mattered most. 

***

"He must have it written somewhere!" 

"We've searched through all of his stuff so far, there is nothing here!" 

"Who told you he really knows how to do it?! Perhaps it's just a rumour!" 

"A rumour? Are you daft?! I saw him perform it with my own eyes, on Evans! They were practicing with their brooms and she flew into the Whomping Willow by accident and had her face and arms cut badly. Snape rushed to her and began moving his wand up and down the cuts and do some singing, so by the time the patrol arrived the cuts had disappeared and she was walking on her feet with him leading her up to the castle." 

"You are the daft one, Prongs; isn't it clear then that he must know it by heart??" 

"It still has to be written somewhere. He could've hardly made it up on his own, could he?" 

"Yeah, rather not; it's Dark magic the git is into, not healing spells. He must have found it in the library and written it down." 

"What for then?" 

"To impress Evans? He fancies her no less than you, Prongs, and that's the sort of thing she'd appreciate, mind you, so he can cover up for all his Dark stuff." 

"Oh shut up and search, Padfood, the class will be over soon and we've got to get out of here before everyone comes back!"

"What if we don't find anything?" 

"We cannot let anyone know it was Moony who scratched the boy. If there won't be another option, we'll drag him personally to the hospital wing to make the cut disappear." 

***

This was not the enemy he had invented it for. This was not the spell he would have expected to make its way into the halls of Hogwarts, of all places. And even though it was by far not the first time he had to resort to Vulnera Sanentur to heal cursed injuries of students or colleagues or Death Eaters, he would have never thought it to be possible that he had to use it to undo the damage caused by his very own curse, casted by Lily's son, of all people.

Of course he believed Potter. He could have never known what force the curse carried. If Potter knew, he certainly wouldn't have applied it. As much as Severus felt repulsed by the boy, he knew that Potter was as far from Dark magic as the Dark Lord from valuing mercifulness, or love.   
He contemplated if a simple detention had been enough an appropriate punishment to bestow upon Potter. If he should have made him to return the book, which Potter undoubtedly had laid his hands upon, regardless of the lies the boy had told him. His apparent leniency for the infliction of such a powerful curse by a student on another was obvious, and it worried Severus. Sectumsempra had by far not been the only dangerous spell he had written down in his book. On the other hand, he reasoned, as easily impressionable as Potter was, the messy result he had created would probably serve as a deterrent, powerful enough to keep him from attempting another tryout with any of Severus's spells. At least not without the knowledge of their counter-curses, first and foremost Vulnera Sanentur, which Potter had not the slightest possibility of mastering. 

Vulnera Sanentur. Such tremendous power in only two words, reversing unforgivable, unfathomable harm, healing what would've never been expected to heal. A song of life, the melody of which he had inherited from his mother to be able to put a stopper in pain and destruction and death. This time it had saved the soul of his godson and his former enemy's son alike, the one from being killed, the other from becoming a murderer. 

Where would he meet it again, waiting for him to be evoked to secure the survival of another miserable being? How would that fateful crossroads look like, where would the paths it offered lead to?   
There was one thing he knew with dreadful certainty - it would not be destined to save the Headmaster's life.   
And the more he thought about it, the more he felt his other conclusion to be affirmed - neither would it save his. 

Severus sighed, feeling a wave of exhaustion overpowering his senses. Before he closed his eyes to gain a few hours of sleep which were left for him until the break of dawn, a peculiar thought crossed his mind, perhaps for the first time in his life:   
If his mother had mastered the healing spell for a human body and taught it to him, wouldn't it have been assumable she had knowledge of a spell to relieve the pain of a human mind as well?   
And if she had, would there have been a reason not pass it down to him?   
If only...

His mind drifted off, and so did the thought.


End file.
